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The Uke Cabaret here in Chicago is always the highlight of my month when it comes around. On May 9 was the latest installment — titled Uke Zoologica, this time around all of the songs had to be animal themed. There were some really great acts, as always. Cabaret organizers Mike, Heather, and Tony tore it up with renditions of "Bungle in the Jungle," "Apeman," and "Barracuda." There were also some nice uke covers of David Bowie, Neko Case, Nick Cave, Duran Duran, and more.

Unfortunately, Melanie wasn't able to make it to Chicago because she had to finish up her schoolwork, as she finally graduated yesterday(!). Without her around, I had to rethink what I could do at the Cabaret. I seriously considered gathering a huge band with a choir and devoting my entire set to a full-length version of Meat Loaf's "Bat Out Of Hell," but alas, it was not to be.

But even though we were halved, The Heavy Boxes went on, with help from Kimberly and Stuart. Thanks to Alan for the videos of our set:

"Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail

"Simon Smith & the Amazing Dancing Bear" by Randy Newman

"Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club

See also: Uke Valentino

The Heavy Boxes performing at Uke Valentino, the February 14, 2009 Chicago Uke Cabaret.

The Heavy Boxes performing at Uke Valentino, the February 14, 2009 Chicago Uke Cabaret.

The Heavy Boxes performing at Uke Valentino, the February 14, 2009 Chicago Uke Cabaret.

On Valentine's Day, The Heavy Boxes returned to the Ukulele Cabaret and played three songs. Melanie didn't think she was going to be able to make it, but pretty close to the last minute, thankfully, she figured things out, which means I didn't have to resort to plan B: a mournful solo rendition of Cher's "Believe."

We were expecting a sparse crowd, considering the holiday, but were surprised to find the place pretty packed - definitely the biggest audience so far. There were new performers, too - overall, probably the strongest set of musicians so far, playing covers of Leonard Cohen, Sam Cooke, Magnetic Fields, Lily Allen, etc. We went on near the end of the night, when ukulele fatigue is easy to set in, but I think we reinvigorated the crowd with the Uke Cabaret debut of our friend the drum machine (someday soon we will have to name him).

I'm going to post videos of our performances in separate posts...right....NOW.

[photo by i.b.]

The Heavy Boxes - Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush cover) from The Heavy Boxes on Vimeo.

The most popular cover that Melanie and I have done at the Ukulele Cabaret, at least according to YouTube views and anecdotal evidence of friends-of-friends from faraway lands like Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT having discovered it independently.

And for reference, the orig.

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This is the first song I recorded after acquiring a ukulele, which means my playing is even worse than it is now. It was written by Joe Raposo, one of the great unsung heroes of songwriting, for the soundtrack of a film by Richard Williams, one of the great unsung heroes of animation. The movie was Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure - a failure when it was released in 1975, but perhaps the film that I watched the most as a kid. My mother can tell you of many occasions when I would prance around the house singing songs from it.

The film, like so many other great films, has yet to be released on DVD. If you happen upon a VHS copy in your local library, it's well worth checking out. Williams, the director, won Oscars for his work as the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit and also made the unfinished masterpiece The Thief and the Cobbler. There's some particularly trippy animation here, as memory serves, particularly in a sequence with a character who is an enormous blob of candy and sweets who seems to snack on himself.

Joe Raposo was responsible for some of my favorite songs of all-time - and likely yours too - many of them written while serving as the original musical director for Sesame Street. The title song, "Being Green," "C is For Cookie," "Somebody Come and Play" - all are Raposo originals. The original recordings of these songs may be saturated with cutesy instruments and sometimes children's choirs, but stripped down, they often betray a real sense of melancholy.

I suppose stripping down this song is what I attempted to do, though I'm not sure how much of the emotional impact comes through my uneven voice and playing. Here's the sad context for the song within the film: Raggedy Ann and Andy have just met the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees - an old, worn-up, blue stuffed camel who has somehow been separated from the rest of his family. He frequently sees mirages which he believes are his family, but they never turn out to be real. A truly tragic figure, here he sings about wandering alone all these many days.